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Happy 1st Birthday ISIS, Fuck You

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Happy 1st Birthday ISIS, Fuck You

It’s been a year since ISIS announced its “caliphate” over an area straddling Iraq and Syria, accelerating its reign of terror and persisting in expanding its reach into the so-called civilized world. The brutality of the rampagers is now a given–the extreme acts of killing, genocide, and systematic rape all featured on social media and intended to be a bullet aimed straight at western sensibilities; offensive clickbait that demands a response, any response.

For months now, noisy armchair warriors have clamored for more bombing and boots on the ground. And after the attacks in Tunisia and the outrageous Dark Ages-inspired killings displayed last week, one might think that we’ve reached the last straw. Boots and bombs, though, are exactly what is on ISIS’ birthday registry. Neither gift should be given; and we would be foolish to the extreme to accelerate American military action.

I don’t speak as a pacifist, nor do I believe that the Obama administration is to be blamed for our current dilemma. And though it is important to ponder why ISIS exists and be mindful of whatever mistakes we’ve made in fighting, I don’t want to deliver any more inspiration to them or stimulate yet more success on their part. While ISIS certainly deserves to be annihilated, the only way that is going to happen is if the people of the region take the lead and we get out of the way.

A year ago, the black flag of ISIS went up in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. Less than a month later, that was followed by the June 29 announcement that a caliphate was being established in the lands of Iraq and Syria. The forerunners of the Islamic State IS—aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL/ISIS or the Arabic acronym Daesh—were the insurgency fighting in Iraq, and the organization has, in the years since the 2011 U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, expanded its control over significant areas of both Iraq and Syria. ISIS has been called a militant group, terrorists, extremists, and barbarians, but over the past year, as it has gained and lost territory, it has hardly been set back.

ISIS persists, but not as a state in the way we recognize nation states, and though there is a leader, it is also leaderless in the sense of any other measure than seized power. Thus, ISIS is more an idea than anything else. It might not be an idea we can accept but it is an idea nevertheless. And though it is impossible to reconcile a civilized interpretation of Islam as the idea, ISIS exists just as religious extremists exist everywhere—Jewish, Christian; let’s face it, where there is any ARMY OF GOD. And I say that as someone who believes in God.

One could recount every detestable step of this demon baby and attribute its success to superb organization and coordination (or indeed to our disorganization). One could count up the number of fighters, their attacks, the number of airstrikes in response, the number of villages seized, the number of fighters and civilians killed, the number of truck interdicted, bombs exploded, throats cut. But all of that would miss the central truth: The inability of the Iraqi state to exert control over its own territory and the lack of will on the part of Iraqi soldiers to fight on behalf of their own nation. There are a million political factors at play that divide the Iraqis and make them ineffective, a million reasons why the “Free Syrians,” vetted and trained in the west, are also a hopeless counter and a losing holding pattern. All of these weakness can be recounted and lamented, but the truth is that the splits and failures are symptomatic of deeper weaknesses in the region. And they aren’t disappearing anytime soon. So ISIS grows.

Happy 1st Birthday ISIS, Fuck You

Add to all of this the “international coalition” that fights ISIS. Our Arab partners are not just reluctant to engage ISIS with offensive vigor and commitment—they are unable 900 years into Islam to claim greater credibility and majesty than the fractured religion itself. Instead these states have adopted and resorted to the age-old model of military repression and control; and then the American instrument of airpower in their own anti-ISIS fighting, emulating our airpower-dominated and hands-off way of war (with its special operations adjunct of equivalent superior killers). Jordan in particular exemplifies the dilemma: a militarized secular monarchy stuck in the middle of dozens of competing models of how to organize society; and then when it comes to war, an air force and a special operations elite made over in our graven image. But it is at the same time neither indigenous nor sustainable without American and western supply and backing. In other words, it is obvious that in a much bigger scheme of things that Amman is our proxy. So ISIS grows.

As ISIS rampages over the territories of two failed states—one created in the demise of Saddam Hussein, the other in the smoldering ashes of the Assad regime in Syria—it appears that the only answer is boots on the ground.

In order to have an intelligent discussion of the need for boots on the ground, it is essential to define what it means. In our current lexicon, because there are already American (and allied) special operations forces on the ground, because there already are air spotters working on the ground, and already CIA paramilitaries and other proxies in Syria and Iraq and Jordan and Turkey and elsewhere, boots on the ground has a very specific connotation. It means regular combat troops, boots referring to the standard issue of conventional fighting units, all in hierarchical unison. These boots comes in camps and have logistical lines and need to be mobilized and sustained, even if they are trim and expeditionary. And given that boots on the ground are also public troops, those with yellow ribbons back home, they also are the subject of intense scrutiny, an army that marches on its stomach and those of its families, more effective militarily at taking territory perhaps but also one which can’t quite stomach the kind of fighting and carnage that ISIS so much wants to engage in.

Happy 1st Birthday ISIS, Fuck You

None of that is to say that ISIS couldn’t be defeated on the ground, but a strategy to do so would necessitate many bigger decisions about what to do about the failed states and Islam and the will of the people, which, in the end, sounds a lot like building a western Empire and warring against Islam, both of which are not in the cards and both of which would just breed more of the same.

There are no boots of this type on the ground, or at least no conquering boots. And so the west is engaged in targeting, which has been the vanguard of all of our military action since at least 2003. Target evil anywhere it can be geolocated, wherever it is, to rid the world of all of its enemies. We are stuck in a wanted-dead-or-alive, head-in-a-box, arch-evil assassination scheme, calculating the data of success as if we are getting anywhere other than bigger numbers.

On the other front, we are funneling billions to information whores in their psychological operations and “influence” campaigns against ISIS and extremism. But can’t we just have some information truth for once? Our influence campaign has been worse than a massive failure: ISIS messages seem to resonate even more globally and there seems no limit in the number willing recruits who want to join the cause.

Not understanding ISIS as an idea though, one might think that these recruits are attracted by ISIS or Shariah or indeed even some religious creed when in fact they are attracted by one thing and one thing alone: their hate of the West, their hate of the proxy state, their hatred of subjugation to western ideals and answers, their hate of the anti-Islamic hegemony that they imagine is organized against them.

On the anniversary today, the news media insists on labeling the anti-ISIS actions as “a massive international campaign” but of course it is nothing of the sort. A hair is barely out of place in Washington in fighting ISIS; only the military and intelligence worlds are seized with war. And thus they—our proxy—fights in a vacuum, doing only what they have now learned to do, all the while waiting for some present to be delivered that is going to make a difference and turn the tide. It isn’t going to be boots on the ground, not in an election year. But it is going to be trinkets that look like boots and in that we will just make things worse.

So, Happy Birthday ISIS. I’m not offering congratulations or wishes for anything. You have raped and tortured and executed in the name of purity and religion, appropriating the hand of God in declaring those not worth of living for blasphemy, sorcery, sodomy, narcotics trafficking. May you spend eternity in hell.


CUNY Plans to Confirm Paul Krugman’s $225,000 Salary

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CUNY Plans to Confirm Paul Krugman’s $225,000 Salary

Last year, the City University of New York hired Princeton professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman to study income inequality and other economic topics at the Luxembourg Income Study Center. The financially beleaguered university system, which is publicly funded, somehow found a way to pay Krugman $225,000 per year.

According to a preliminary agenda for the next meeting of CUNY’s Board of Trustees—scheduled for tonight—the board intends to confirm Krugman’s salary (and his title of “Distinguished Professor”)*:

CUNY Plans to Confirm Paul Krugman’s $225,000 Salary

According to a person with knowledge of CUNY board meetings, it is fairly rare for trustees to reject any item on the draft agenda. Let us be the first, then, to congratulate Krugman on this wonderful news.

* Correction: This post originally stated that CUNY was planning to give Krugman a raise, based on the text of the preliminary agenda, which stated that Krugman would be receiving “compensation of $28,594 per annum in addition to their regular academic salary.” But a spokesperson for CUNY tells Gawker that this is not the case:

Paul Krugman is NOT receiving a pay raise. He is being appointed as a Distinguished Professor and his salary of $225,000 was always inclusive of the $28,594.

We’ve updated the post and headline to reflect this clarification. We’ve also asked CUNY if other professors have had similar salary arrangements.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Zadie Smith Is Going to Space

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Zadie Smith Is Going to Space

Today it was announced that Zadie Smith will team with French director Claire Denis to co-write her first English-language film, which is set in “a place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present,’” according to Screen Daily.

What is “a place beyond the solar system in a ‘future that seems like the present,’” you ask? Only the entire universe. One might say it’s the ideal setting for Smith to render a cast of unforgettable characters not confined to the streets of present-day New York City or her native Northwest London.

Nick Laird, bka Zadie Smith’s husband, has also signed on to help write the script.

Oliver Dungey, a producer on the film, told Screen Daily:

“I am delighted that Claire has been tempted to cross the channel and make a film in English; she is one of the greats of contemporary cinema and she’s assembled a quite extraordinary team to make exactly the kind of ambitious film that audiences cherish – completely original, genuinely pushing the boundaries of art and science and, above all, extremely entertaining.”

Also joining the “extraordinary team” is a Danish-Icelandic artist, an astrophysicist, and a member of the indie band Tindersticks.

We’re incredibly excited to see Denis’ and Smith’s vision take shape. Dan Kois is also very excited. Everybody is excited.

[Image via Getty]

Supreme Court Blocks Law That Would Basically Ban Abortion in Texas

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Supreme Court Blocks Law That Would Basically Ban Abortion in Texas

The U.S. Supreme Court today issued a stay in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole, the case concerning a highly restrictive Texas anti-abortion law that would all but ban abortion across the state. The Fifth Circuit court of appeals upheld the law earlier this month.

SCOTUS voted 5-4 to block the Fifth Circuit’s ruling from taking effect, pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.

The law, HB 2, would have forced clinics to meet the building standards of surgery centers, but the majority of them are small and don’t have the budget to perform the required upgrades. It would also require clinic doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, a requirement few of the state’s clinics are in a position to meet.

If the Court deems the law Constitutional or declines to hear the case, Texas will be left with only 7 clinics statewide.

Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito voted to deny the stay application.

[Photo: AP Images]

A new study finds that melting sea ice in the North Atlantic caused by global warming could ultimate

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A new study finds that melting sea ice in the North Atlantic caused by global warming could ultimately cause Western Europe to get colder. So there will be somewhere cool to go when America becomes a sweltering hellscape.

The Gayest BET Awards Ever

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The Gayest BET Awards Ever

The world is getting gayer, so it would make sense that the BET Awards are, too. Last night’s show offered little justification for its four hour runtime, unless, maybe, you were a homo.

Here is a list of the BET Awards’ gayest moments—ordered from RuPaul to Queen Latifah.

The Supreme Court

Last night’s show had some dominant themes. Nicki Minaj is too good for this shit. Rihanna is too famous for this shit. Tracee Ellis Ross is too funny to being doing this shit. Chris Brown is too shitty for this shit. Also, the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.

Amber Rose and Blac Chyna (Tyga’s most recent adult partner) showed up as dates in matching suits to honor the court’s decision. Apparently they kissed, as well. I saw Blac Chyna being interviewed and either she doesn’t like cameras or she was high as shit.

During the Empire cast’s medley of songs, Jussie Smollett, who is gay IRL and on TV, said a short spoken word interlude about marriage equality. Here is a transcription, via EW:

“We live in a nation where freedom is what we represent, yet we are still fighting every day for the basic freedoms of all of our people,” he said. “Let the Supreme Court ruling be proof of how far we have come. Let the deaths of sisters and brothers be proof of how far we have to go. No one is free until we are all free.” He ended the performance with three simple words: “Stand for love.”

Patti Labelle also made a statement celebrating the court’s decision during her performance, saying:

“We celebrate the Supreme Court decision that all people can love who they want, and they can even get married,” Labelle said. “Can I get a whoop whoop?”

Whoop whoop.

Laverne Cox

The transgender actress and activist presented an award early in the night in matching outfits with Gabrielle Union.

The Gayest BET Awards Ever

She was also specifically recognized by BET CEO Debra Lee during her annual speech for dancing in the crowd. And her red carpet look was stunning as always.

“No tea, no shade”

Throughout the broadcast, BET ran promos for its post-show... show. The curious thing about the promos is that the tagline was “no tea, no shade,” perhaps the most gay saying of them all.

K. Michelle and Tamar Braxton

I’m still not sure why these two got a slot (along with the aforementioned Patti Labelle) during hour three of the show, but I can scarcely imagine a gayer confluence of events than K. Michelle—who has dated women—and Tamar Braxton—who is so beloved by gay men that she has both been impersonated and appeared on RuPaul’s Drag Race—performing together during Pride Weekend.

That Tamar’s eye make up looked eerily reminiscent of 2015’s Breakout Viral Gay Local News Witness was icing atop the funfetti cake.

Jason Derulo’s well-timed entrance

The big centerpiece of this year’s show was a rather bizarre tribute to Janet Jackson—a queer icon who made the most sexually progressive pop music of a generation. The performance featured Jason Derulo, Ciara and Tinashe dancing—but not singing!—along to some of Janet’s biggest hits, before Janet herself floated across the stage in a white coat—without singing!— to accept her award.

It was mostly a let down. My favorite part was when Derulo bounded onstage to Janet’s “All For You” right at the part where Janet sings “got a nice package alright, guess I’ll have to ride it tonight.” That line was silenced either for the television censors or because Jason Derulo does not personally want to ride nice packages alright, but either way the timing was poignantly gay.

Omarion and Chris Brown eat the booty like groceries

Instead of being in prison forever, Chris Brown was at the BET Awards. He performed a song with Tyga, and then transitioned into “Post to Be,” the incredible Omarion hit that he guests on. The most memorable thing—or, at the very least, the most viral thing—about “Post to Be” is Jhene Aiko’s infamous line, “but he gotta eat the booty like groceries.”

For reasons unannounced, Jhene Aiko was not at the BET Awards, so instead Brown and Omarion danced around the stage during her verse. This means that when Jhene Aiko sang about getting her ass eaten, it was just the two dudes, alone in the center of the stage, conversing about the act of licking buttholes.

Here was Chris Brown’s face at that very moment.

The Gayest BET Awards Ever

Straight ass eating is cool now but we know where you guys got it from.

[image via Sam Woolley]


Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

Michael Douglas Regrets Attributing His Cancer to His Wife's Vagina 

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Michael Douglas Regrets Attributing His Cancer to His Wife's Vagina 

Michael Douglas, who has braved both cancer of the throat and foot of the mouth, is apparently man enough to admit that publicly shaming his wife’s vagina for his health issues wasn’t exactly a “smart move.”

A quick recap: in 2011, Douglas gave a bizarre interview to the Guardian suggesting the cause and cure of his throat cancer came from the same place: a woman.

The throat cancer, I assume, was first seeded during those wild middle years, when he drank like a fish and smoked like the devil. Looking back, knowing what he knows now, does he feel he overloaded his system?

“No,” he says. “No. Because, without wanting to get too specific, this particular cancer is caused by HPV [human papillomavirus], which actually comes about from cunnilingus.”

From what? For a moment I think that I may have misheard.

“From cunnilingus. I mean, I did worry if the stress caused by my son’s incarceration didn’t help trigger it. But yeah, it’s a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer.” He shrugs. “And if you have it, cunnilingus is also the best cure for it.”

Right, I say. OK. So what he is suggesting is that it all evens out? “That’s right,” says Douglas. “It giveth and it taketh.”

And indeed, the cunnilingus comments he gaveth, and the cunnilingus comments he now taketh away: this week Douglas walked back his definitively unsexy and wholly medically inaccurate conclusions.

‘What I was trying to say was that there is a sexually transmitted virus called HPC,’ Douglas says, in an attempt to clarify the controversy that ensued.

‘But there is a vaccination that they recommend to all kids before they become sexually active so they don’t catch HPC, which is a cause of certain types of cancer – cervical cancer, tongue and throat.’

So he didn’t imply that performing oral sex could cure certain types of cancer?

‘No,’ he groans, anguished by the notion. ‘I was trying to make a public service comment.’

...

‘It was one of those things... and I so regretted any embarrassment that it caused Catherine,’ he winces, before adding: ‘And her family.’

Here’s a public service comment, for free: next time you want to talk about your wife’s vagina, for any reason at all, definitely don’t do it!!!!!!!!!!!


Contact the author at gabrielle@gawker.com.

Here Is a Video of a Cop Dancing at New York City’s Gay Pride Parade


Texas Town Is Charging Us $79,000 for Emails About Pool Party Abuse Cop

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Texas Town Is Charging Us $79,000 for Emails About Pool Party Abuse Cop

Days after McKinney, Texas, police officer Eric Casebolt was filmed pointing his service weapon at a group of unarmed black teenagers at a pool party this month, Gawker submitted a Public Information Act request to the city of McKinney asking to see Casebolt’s records and any emails about his conduct sent or received by McKinney Police Department employees. Today, we received a letter from the city’s attorneys claiming that fulfilling our request would cost $79,229.09.

The city arrived at that extraordinary figure after estimating that hiring a programmer to execute the grueling and complex task of searching through old emails would cost $28.50 per hour, and that the search for emails about Casebolt would take 2,231 hours of said programmer’s time. That only comes to about $63,000; the bill also includes $14,726 “to cover the actual time a computer resource takes to execute a particular program.” In other words, the operating cost of the computer used to search the emails is nearly 15 grand on its own. Another portion of Gawker’s request, for copies of Casebolt’s personnel file and any internal investigations into his conduct, costs $255.04.

How could finding a few emails possibly be so expensive? Casebolt, who has since resigned from McKinney PD, joined the department in 2005, and Gawker requested copies of all correspondence regarding his conduct dating back to that year. According to the letter, emails maintained by the city before March 1, 2014, “are not in a format that is searchable by City personnel,” and making the emails searchable would require “Programming Personnel to execute an existing program or to create a new program so that requested information may be accessed and copied,” to the tune of the aforementioned $63k. But since when are year-old emails not searchable? Is the city of McKinney still corresponding via telegram?

From the letter, which you can read in full here:

After consulting with various personnel and estimating the amount of time needed to compile the requested information, the City anticipates that the cost for gathering the information you seek will exceed forty dollars ($40.00). Therefore, the enclosed itemized cost estimate attached as Exhibit A-1 and Exhibit A-2 is sent pursuant to section 552.2615 of the Act. This itemized cost estimate reflects the anticipated charges of $255.04 and $78,974.05...Before the City will compile these portions of your request, a payment of $79,229.09 is required.

And the noted itemized cost estimates:

Texas Town Is Charging Us $79,000 for Emails About Pool Party Abuse Cop

Texas Town Is Charging Us $79,000 for Emails About Pool Party Abuse Cop

Given the stratospheric total number—and the fact that nearly every email client on the planet has some sort of search function—it’s hard to read the letter as anything other than a deliberate attempt to conceal information. We’ll be filing an appeal.


Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Oh, Shit: More Than 1,000 Runners Get Diarrhea After Mud Day Event 

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Oh, Shit: More Than 1,000 Runners Get Diarrhea After Mud Day Event 

Last year, the Washington Post reported that participating in trendy tough-guy mud runs often comes with a painful case of abdominal cramps and diarrhea brought on by literally eating shit—fecal bacteria mixed in with the mud. More than a thousand people are suffering those ill effects after a popular French event last week. (Not so tough now, are you?)

Regional health authorities confirm that cases of norovirus, a fun bug that comes with fever, vomiting, and diarrhea, reached the four digits after Mud Day in Nice June 20. An environmental review is underway, but animal fecal bacteria are a common transmission vector for norovirus, so there’s a strong suspicion that le mud was full of le merde.

More than 8,400 “Mud Guys” and “Mud Girls” entered the event, organizers confirmed. Hundreds of them complained on the event’s Facebook page, according to The Local, with one running noting “the distinct smell of horse manure” on the course.

Remember, tough guys: When you sign up for a mud run, you sign up for the mud runs.

[Photo (from a different event in Austria) via AP Images]

Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo

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Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo

To celebrate a photo shoot for an upcoming issue of W Magazine, model Chrissy Teigen posted a topless photo of herself to Instagram. “Honored to be in the company of such gorgeous women!” she wrote in the caption, before thanking the photographer, hair and makeup artists, and her agents. The NSFW photo is embedded below.

Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo

As the Daily Dot notes, Instagram deleted a nude photo Teigen posted in 2013. Unrelatedly, Gawker is currently 300,000 unique visitors behind Deadspin for the title of most-visited Gawker Media site over the last 30 days.

UPDATE 6:33 pm: Instagram—or maybe Chrissy?—has removed the photo.

UPDATE 7:54 pm:

UPDATE 9:47 pm: Teigen posted three new versions of the original photo. An “oil painting”:

Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo

A “pencil sketch”:

Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo

And a “colored pencil sketch”:

Chrissy Teigen Defies Instagram's Nudity Policy With Topless Photo

UPDATE 11:06 pm: Instagram removed Teigen’s photos again. Screenshots are above.

h/t Daily Dot. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.

Here’s a $79,000 FOIA Bill from the City of McKinney, Texas

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The City of McKinney, Texas, is claiming that fulfilling a Public Information Act request for records and emails regarding pool party cop Eric Casebolt would cost nearly $80,000. Here’s the full text of the letter from their attorney that informed us of the cost.

Here’s a $79,000 FOIA Bill from the City of McKinney, Texas

Here’s a $79,000 FOIA Bill from the City of McKinney, Texas

Here’s a $79,000 FOIA Bill from the City of McKinney, Texas

Here’s a $79,000 FOIA Bill from the City of McKinney, Texas

Here’s a $79,000 FOIA Bill from the City of McKinney, Texas


Contact the author at andy@gawker.com.

Walmart Is Very Sorry It Made an ISIS Cake

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Walmart Is Very Sorry It Made an ISIS Cake

Earlier this weekend, a Southern American by the name of Chuck Netzhammer was dismayed when Walmart refused to make him a Confederate flag cake. He was even more dismayed when the store seemed to have no problem making what he dubbed an “ISIS battle cake.” So, Netzhammer asked the question that’s been weighing on everyone’s mind: “Does Walmart support ISIS?”

To which Walmart replied, “No.”

Apparently, whoever made the (relatively well-crafted!) cake did not know that what they were actually designing was the now-iconic flag for a notorious Islamic militant group. As a Walmart spokesperson told ABC News, “An associate in a local store did not know what the design meant and made a mistake. The cake should not have been made and we apologize.”

According to receipts displayed in the video above, Walmart sold the ISIS battle cake for a total of $20.93—which, all told, seems like a very reasonable price. And while you probably won’t be able to buy this particular cake at your local Walmart, there’s still no word on whether the store plans to pull any dildo variants, as well.


Contact the author at ashley@gawker.com.

Report: Former Florida State Mascot Fatally Stabbed Over Gumbo Recipe

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Report: Former Florida State Mascot Fatally Stabbed Over Gumbo Recipe

A Florida man who portrayed FSU mascot Chief Osceola from 2004-2007 was stabbed to death last week after a dispute about how to properly season gumbo, the New York Daily News reports.

Authorities say 33-year-old Caleb Joshua Halley died on Thursday from injuries he sustained during a fight about the stew’s recipe with co-worker Orlando Thompson. From the Tallahassee Democrat:

According to police reports the two men were arguing over the amount of spice to put into Buddy’s Seafood Market gumbo Tuesday where the two men worked.

Thompson armed himself with a wooden board and Halley with a small wooden knife.

Thompson then retreated and returned with a knife, slashing Halley, causing three lacerations across his torso.

Panama City police later arrested Thompson on manslaughter charges.

According to his obituary, Halley’s Native American heritage “made him so proud to be part of FSU’s dignified depiction of the historical Seminole leader Osceola,” who opens the school’s home football games “by riding to midfield with a burning spear and planting it in the turf.”

[Image via Getty Images]

Falling Drone Knocks Woman Unconscious at Pride Parade

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Falling Drone Knocks Woman Unconscious at Pride Parade

Authorities in Seattle are searching for the dumbass that crashed a two-pound drone above the city’s Pride parade on Sunday, knocking a 25-year-old woman out cold, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.

According to police, the woman was watching the parade when the drone hit a nearby building and fell into the crowd below, striking her on the head. From NBC News:

Her boyfriend caught her as she fell, and an off-duty firefighter treated the woman until police arrived.

Det. Patrick Michaud, a spokesman for the Seattle police, told NBC News the collision left the woman with “not a gentle concussion.”

Witnesses described the drone pilot as as an unshaven man in his 20s with “a distinctive tattoo of a woman,” presumably one showing an innocent bystander getting knocked out by an adult man’s stupid toy.

[Image via AP Images]


Elderly Nuns Try to Block Sale of L.A. Convent to Katy Perry

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Elderly Nuns Try to Block Sale of L.A. Convent to Katy Perry

According to The Washington Post, a former convent in Los Feliz, California has become the subject of a heated legal battle after two elderly nuns sold the property in an attempt to stop singer Katy Perry from buying it.

At the center of the dispute is who owns the valuable hilltop real estate, which has been unoccupied since the Archdiocese of Los Angeles relocated the last of the convent’s five surviving sisters in 2011. From KCBS:

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has been in talks with pop superstar Katy Perry, who first learned of the property three years ago. The newspaper says Perry has agreed to pay the archdiocese $14.5 million in cash.

But the nuns insist the property is theirs, and that they don’t want it to go to Perry.

That’s reportedly why they sold the property two weeks ago to local restaurateur Dana Hollister, while the archdiocese deal was pending, according to the [L.A.] Times.

The archdiocese has since sued to stop the sale, saying in a statement, “Unfortunately, the Archdiocese had to take civil action to protect against the unauthorized action by Ms. Hollister.”

For their part, the nuns say they were unfamiliar with singer until relatively recently.

“Well, I found Katy Perry and I found her videos and ... if it’s all right to say, I wasn’t happy with any of it,” Sister Rita Callanan told the Times.

Perry, however, finally met with the sisters last month, reportedly showing them “a ‘Jesus’ tattoo on her wrist area” and treating them to a private performance of “Oh Happy Day.”

“Our days have not been happy since then,” Sister Rita told Today on Monday, “I can assure you.”

[Image via Getty Images]

Dead Teen Tests Positive for Ebola Virus in Liberia

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Dead Teen Tests Positive for Ebola Virus in Liberia

Seven weeks after the World Health Organization declared the country free of the disease, Liberia’s deputy health minister said on Monday that the body of a 17-year-old boy had tested positive for Ebola, the Associated Press reports.

According to Assistant Minister of Health Tolbert Nyenswah, the teen died last Wednesday in the town of Nedowein, near Liberia’s international airport and far away from neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone, which have continued to battle the virus.

It was not immediately clear how the boy contracted the disease, but officials have told the public not to panic, saying the situation is under control.

In May, WHO announced that Liberia was officially Ebola-free after no new cases had been reported for 42 days, twice the virus’s maximum incubation period. Since breaking out in West Africa last year, the CDC says Ebola has claimed more than 11,000 lives.

[Image via AP Images]

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

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Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

This year’s Hugo Awards controversy is confusing. There are two kinds of puppies! Are the puppies against diversity, or literary snobbery? And so on. But really, this is all about books, and particularly what kind of books we’re supposed to celebrate. So here are eight books that can help you understand the Hugo mess.

But first, here’s what happened to the Hugo Awards, in a nutshell. Conservative authors Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen created the “Sad Puppies” voting slate to get the kind of authors that they felt were being unfairly neglected onto the Hugo ballot. (Anyone who buys a supporting membership in the World Science Fiction Convention can nominate works for the Hugo and vote on the awards, and it doesn’t take that many votes to nominate something.)

The first year, this was a small, limited effort. But last year, they succeeded in putting more nominees on the ballot, including Theodore “Vox Day” Beale, who had been notorious for using the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s official Twitter account to send racist tweets. This year, they went all-out, stuffing the nominations ballot enough to fill it with their chosen picks. (And Beale, who organized a “Rabid Puppies” slate of his own, was vastly more successful.)

The upshot? This year’s Hugo Ballot is much more male-dominated than during the brief period from 2010-2014 when the nominations were reaching something like gender parity. And a staggering number of the nominations went to John C. Wright (a Catholic author who’s become notorious for his homophobic rants) and/or authors from Beale’s own tiny publishing company, Castalia House. (Beale himself scored two “Best Editor” nominations.)

But all the discussions about the Puppies, pro and con, tend to bog down in generalizations. So let’s get specific. Here are eight books that can help illuminate this mess. Because this is about books, or it’s about nothing at all.

1) The Forever War by Joe Haldeman (1974)

What it’s about: An endless star-spanning war, in which time dilation means that a single soldier lives through other people’s lifetimes. Homosexuality becomes the norm on Earth, and William Mandella has a hard time adjusting to a world where he’s the “old queer.” And meanwhile, it turns out the war was caused by a misunderstanding.

Awards won: The Hugo, as well as the Nebula and the Locus Award

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What people have said about it: “This is an enraged and enraging classic that deserves a place alongside Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter as an expression of the pain caused by Vietnam.” — The Guardian.

What we said about it: “[The Forever War] is famously considered a markedly antiwar response to Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, which, as has been previously noted here, is a fantastic, rollicking read that is really a thought experiment about what an ideal military force would be like, but which has drawn a fair amount of fire because of how completely it evades any serious reflection on the possible downsides of soldierhood. Like a lot of entertainment, science fiction has a history of engaging with themes over and over again, and presenting them with greater nuance and believability or sophistication with each major recurrence of a riff.”

What the Sad Puppies have said: Torgersen, in particular, has tried to claim that fun, adventurous books tended to dominate the Hugos in the 1970s and 1980s. He wrote: “That’s what Science Fiction & Fantasy was always about: the rip-roaring good story... A few decades ago, if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds.... These days, you can’t be sure. The book has a spaceship on the cover, but is it really going to be a story about space exploration and pioneering derring-do? Or is the story merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings? ... You can have ‘issues’ in your SF/F but I fear the issues have overtaken the adventure.”

[Other past Hugo Award recipients we could have put here include A Canticle For Leibowitz, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Left Hand of Darkness, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The Dispossessed, Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, Dreamsnake, The Fountains of Paradise, and a few others.]

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2) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (1990)

What it’s about: One of the most famous science fiction novels of all time, Crichton’s book about de-extincting dinosaurs to put them into a theme park was turned into an iconic movie by Steven Spielberg.

Awards won: None. In fact, Crichton never received a Hugo nomination, something the Puppies have seized upon as evidence of bias. (See below.)

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What the Puppies have said: “Brad Torgersen, a Sad Puppies organizer, says that the Hugos have long strayed from ‘the larger body of fans’ and disdained what’s popular. Michael Crichton, the author of Jurassic Park and other blockbusters, was never nominated for his books, Mr. Torgersen notes. ‘Some of us decided to get active about pushing back against the blind spots.’” — The Wall Street Journal

What other people have said: “Since the publication of The Andromeda Strain in 1969 until today, as The Lost World sets new box office records, Crichton has been, in a commercial sense, the most consistently successful SF writer of the late 20th c. In large part this is because he has not been labelled as an SF writer, and thus worthy of adult attention.” — Thomas M. Disch, The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of.

“ There are a number of writers of SF — I’ll briefly consider “speculative fiction” in general before turning to science fiction specifically — who have never written genre fiction. That is, at least as far as the publishers and bookstores are concerned... writers like Stephen King and Michael Crichton have never been marketed as genre writers.” — Mike Brotherton.

“[Crichton has] gone to sometimes frantic lengths in order not to let [his] books be labeled science fiction.” — David Brin, writing in 2005.

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3) Monster Hunter Legion by Larry Correia (2012)

What it’s about: The fourth book in Correia’s Monster Hunter Nation series, this book follows his team as they try to recapture an escaped World War II experiment, in Las Vegas.

Awards: None.

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What people have said about it: “A large part of the attraction of these books is the glorious action-movie feel to them. Sometimes you just want to read a book about blowing up the gribbly things with lots of explosions. It’s not exactly the highest or more sophisticated desire, but it still makes them pretty fun reads.” — Fangs for the Fantasy.

“The fourth title (and first hardback) in Correia’s popular series... features fast-paced battle scenes, tongue-in-cheek humor, funny, likable characters, and an appropriate amount of gore. Readers of urban fantasy and military SF, as well as series fans, will enjoy this adventure.” — Library Journal

“[This is an] action-packed, fantasy-filled story. With that said, parts of the story can be a little reaching and convenient at times.” — Deseret News

What the Puppies have said: This is the book that launched the Sad Puppies campaign. In a January 2013 blog post called “How to get Correia nominated for a Hugo,” Correia wrote, “The fact that I write unabashed pulp action that isn’t heavy handed message fic annoys the literati to no end. When I got nominated for the Campbell [Award], the literati message-fic crowd had a conniption fit. ... Just imagine with me [the choice if this gets nominated]: Should I vote for the heavy handed message fic about the dangers of fracking and global warming and dying polar bears and robot rape as a bad feminist analogy with a villain who is a thinly veiled Dick Cheney? Or should I vote for the LAS VEGAS EXPLOSION SHOOTING EVERYTHING DRAGON HELICOPTER CHASE ORC SACRIFICING CHICKENS BOOK!?! ... And here’s the kicker, it doesn’t take very many votes for something to actually get nominated! I was shocked how few it was.”

Correia later wrote: “Do I think that novel of mine was one of the greatest works of 2012? Nope. But since [the Secret Masters of Fandom, a term for convention organizers] hates me, it would’ve been awesome to get it on there just to prove a point.”

[Correia failed to win a nomination that year, but the Sad Puppies 2 campaign succeeded in placing him on the ballot a year later, along with Vox Day and a handful of other authors. The Sad Puppies 3 campaign also placed Correia on the ballot, but he declined the nomination this time, as did Torgersen.]

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4) Blackout by Mira Grant (2012)

What it’s about: The third book in the Feed/Deadline/Blackout trilogy, this book once again follows a group of heroic bloggers who are exposing the truth in the wake of a zombie apocalypse, in the face of a media blackout. This time around, the CDC is doing sinister experiments.

Awards won: None. But this book did receive a Hugo nomination, and was part of a then-unprecedented sweep in which Grant (or her alter ego, Seanan McGuire) received five Hugo nominations.

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What we said about it: We didn’t review Blackout, but we reviewed the first book in the trilogy, Feed. We wrote: “This fast-paced undead thriller will be great for people who enjoy their zombie slaughtering with a hearty slice of social commentary... The action scenes (crossbows!) and setting were what kept me going all the way to its very emotional end, which I think is a testament to how well-written the characters and setting are.”

What other people said about it: “[A]nother thoughtful high-energy tale of life and politics among the dead and not-so-dead... Zombie attacks, family members in physical and emotional jeopardy, and vast government conspiracies all contribute to a heady tale that reaches a satisfying conclusion.” — Publishers Weekly.

“I see that Seanan McGuire is getting a fair ration of crap from various quarters because she’s on the ballot a remarkable and record-setting five times, including in the Best Novel category, and twice in Novelette. What I’m seeing heavily implies that McGuire’s on the list because she has an apparently mystical ability to drive hordes of fans to nominate her for everything no matter what. Hey, I have an alternate theory, which goes a little something like this: Seanan McGuire is a very talented writer! Who writes things that people like! Including the people who nominate for the Hugos! Seems the simpler explanation, all things considered.” — John Scalzi.

What the Puppies said about it: “I like Seanan personally. I think she’s pretty cool in person and she’s a solid writer… Was every novel, short, novella, and novelette she wrote one of the best five things in the world this year? Probably not. But she is popular with the [Secret Masters of Fandom], ergo she is nominated. You preach the right kind of message fic, you can get nominated. You get popular with the right crowd, you can get nominated. If you are popular enough with the right crowd the Hugos will even tweak which category you fit in so that their two favorites don’t have to go head to head and both can win Hugos.” — Larry Correia [via].

“To be fair, Seanan got screwed a couple of years ago for best novel [for Feed], and had the most 1st place votes, but still lost once they worked out their weird Hugo vote tabulation magic.” — Larry Correia.

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5) Redshirts by John Scalzi (2012)

What it’s about: This Star Trek spoof examines what it would be like to be one of the disposable cannon-fodder crewmembers aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise... especially once you begin to suspect that tropes really are deadly.

Awards won: 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What we said about it:Redshirts isn’t a straight-up satire or critique of Star Trek and similar shows — which is probably for the best. Scalzi takes some of his trademark smart, quippy characters and puts them into a Trekkian reality in which they’re forced to make sense of their existence... If you love Star Trek, or classic space opera generally, you will get a lot out of Redshirts.” [Full disclosure: Scalzi and I are both edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor Books.]

What other people said about it: “Anyone who grew up on Star Trek or its descendants can figure out what’s going on in Redshirts. That is, until things get even funkier. Which is to say that this is a John Scalzi novel, and a reader must expect the unexpected, including a surprising emotional punch as the story unfolds, reconfigures and steps outside itself.” — The New York Times.

“A light parody of a hoary old Star Trek trope becomes richer and more rewarding as it goes along.” - The A.V. Club (B+).

“I know Scalzi is liberal, and I know that the Puppies seem to hate him, though I can’t for the life of me understand why — but whatever you think of the writer’s politics, REDSHIRTS is a light, fun, amusing SF adventure, an affectionate riff off of STAR TREK, Ghu help us.” — George R.R. Martin

What the Puppies said about it: “The fact that [Kim Stanley] Robinson lost in 2013 to Scalzi’s ambitious fanfic book, is indicative of the politicized joke that the Hugos have become. Especially the Best Novel category. Robinson is and always has been the superior storyteller (vs. Scalzi) and there is no way you can convince me that Redshirts was a better story than [Robinson’s] 2312. Or Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance [by Lois McMaster Bujold], for that matter. See, here’s the thing. As soon as the Social Justice Warriors decided to agitate for bean-counting at the SF/F awards, the process was perniciously poisoned. For more and more voters, who or what wins is largely a question of ‘Does the author or the story allow me to check a victim group box?’ as opposed to, ‘Did this author or story sweep me off my readerly feet and transport me utterly to another, amazing world, or amazing time or place?’... the focus has grown tedious and myopic. Can we check a victim box? How many beans do we get to count with this author or this book?” — Brad R. Torgersen

“I was mildly amused to see that the Hugo Awards honored no less than five people who were involved in some way in my expulsion from SFWA.” — Theodore “Vox Day” Beale. [Note: Scalzi stepped down as President of SFWA just two months before Beale was expelled for tweeting his own racist article via the official SFWA Twitter feed.]

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6) Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (2013)

What it’s about: In this space opera novel, we meet Breq, a “fragment” of a hive mind that used to run a starship. Now she’s far from home, on an ice planet, looking for something. (And Breq speaks a language with no gendered pronouns, so she uses the female pronoun as a default for everyone she meets.)

Awards won: Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, BSFA Award for Best First Novel, Locus Award for Best First Novel, etc.

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What we said about it: We compared it to the works of Iain M. Banks, and wrote, “It’s very rare to find an author who can balance suspense and violence with subtlety and character development. But, like Banks once did, Leckie has done a marvelous job here. This is a novel that will thrill you like the page-turner it is, but stick with you for a long time afterward, infecting your perspective on the so-called familiar world around us that is a lot more alien than any of us give it credit for.”

What other people said about it: “A space opera that skillfully handles both choruses and arias, Ancillary Justice is an absorbing thousand-year history, a poignant personal journey, and a welcome addition to the genre.” — NPR

“In which a zombie imperialist space cop gets caught up in a complex plot to—well, this enjoyable sci-fi outing gets even more complicated than all that.... As the action picks up, one just knows there’s going to be some battering and bruising out on the shoulder of Orion. Leckie’s novel cast of characters serves her well-plotted story nicely. This is an altogether promising debut.” — Kirkus

What the Puppies said about it: “Here’s the thing about Ancillary Justice. For about 18 months prior to the book’s release, SF/F was a-swirl with yammering about gender fluidity, gender ‘justice,’ transgenderism, yadda yadda. Up pops Ancillary Justice and everyone is falling all over themselves about it. Because why? Because the topic du jour of the Concerned Intellectuals Are Concerned set, was gender. And Ancillary Justice’s prime gimmick was how it messed around with gender. And it was written by a female writer. Wowzers! How transgressive! How daring! We’re fighting the cis hetero male patriarchy now, comrades! We’ve anointed Leckie’s book the hottest thing since sliced bread. Not because it’s passionate and sweeping and speaks to the heart across the ages. But because it’s a social-political pot shot at ordinary folk. For whom more and more of the SF/F snobs have nothing but disdain and derision.” — Brad R. Torgersen

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7) The Book of Feasts and Seasons by John C. Wright (2014)

What it’s about: This religious story collection contains one story for each Holy Day of Obligation in the Catholic calendar. Most of the stories contain overt religious messages—in one story, a man actually travels back in time and holds the baby Jesus in his arms. In some stories, angels and saints turn up and deliver homilies. But there are also ghosts, time-travelers, posthuman animals, and aliens.

Awards: None yet, but the stories in this book account for three out of the six Hugo nominations that Wright received this year, thanks mostly to the Rabid Puppies. (Although one of those three stories was later disqualified, because it had been previously published.) You can read the two remaining nominated stories from the book, the noir ghost story “Pale Realms of Shade” and the animal fable “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds” online. (And this book is, of course, published by Castalia House, Beale’s own publishing company.)

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What we’ve said about it: We didn’t review this book previously, but I’ve just read it cover to cover. And... it’s a mixed bag. Wright is an engaging writer, with a lively style, and he wears his love of Golden Age science fiction on his sleeve. The first two or three pages of “Queen of the Tyrant Lizards” contain some of the most powerful writing I’ve seen in ages, and a few other parts are quite moving as well. Wright has plenty of terrific ideas, and his portrayal of time travel, and of time as an ocean, is clever and fascinating. But at the same time, Wright has a tendency to drive into the weeds. Some of these stories begin well, but then go flying off the rails in the middle (including “Tyrant Lizards.”) And many of Wright’s stories revolve around a climax that has to be explained to the reader, rather than dramatized—forget “show don’t tell,” Wright is too busy being didactic to tell an actual story. And when he’s not over-explaining his plots, Wright gets lost in political rants, including the ever-present insistence that humanity is headed for a dystopian future in which we are ruled by feminists, Muslims and pornographers. (At one point, the narrator warns of a dark future of nothing but “thin, ugly minarets.”) Also, in one story, a heroic priest watches a man die in horrible agony, and “chuckles” at him. G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis proved that Christian allegory can make for great storytelling, but Wright falls far short.

What other people have said about it: Happy Catholic Bookshelf says: “As the theme of this collection suggests these are stories that have a philosophical and theological dimension. Yet this is not pious SF that sacrifices storytelling for piety. These are excellent stories that happen to have a deeper dimension.”

But meanwhile, Lis Carey has been reviewing this year’s Hugo Nominees, and thinks “Pale Realms of Shade” is “a solid story,” but not at all Hugo Award-quality, while “Parliament of Beasts and Birds” is “just awful.”

Lyle Hopwood is less complimentary: “The imagination is there, the drive to pound a few Catholic messages home is there, but the writing and editing are not up to the task... One thing Larry Correia was very firm on when he created the Sad Puppies was that he hated message fiction, and preferred a good old fashioned story.”

What the Puppies have said about it: “I’m very pleased that science fiction readers so strongly supported the Sad Puppies recommendations. It’s fantastic to see John C. Wright, one of the true grandmasters of science fiction, finally receiving some long-overdue recognition. It’s a real privilege to publish him and we’re delighted to learn that his six Hugo nominations this year set a new record.” — Theodore “Vox Day” Beale, quoted in Breitbart.

Wright’s written some of the deepest, most philosophical and amazing science fiction of the new century. He is wholly able to stand with the greats in the field at this time. All Sad Puppies (and apparently Rabid Puppies) did was aim the spotlight in John’s direction” — Brad R. Torgersen, quoted in Vox.com

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8) Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (2015)

What it’s about: The moon blows up, and the survivors of Earth go to live in orbit, where seven women are forced to make some hard choices to continue the human race.

Awards: None yet, but it’s already being talked about as a likely Hugo contender.

Eight Books You Need To Know About To Understand The Hugo Awards Snafu

What we said about it: “One of the most exciting things about [Seveneves] is that it’s packed with realistic representations of space megastructures where humans live.” - Gizmodo.

What other people have said: “A truly epic disaster novel.” — The Guardian.

“The drama of the first two-thirds of Seveneves is all in orbital mechanics and bolide fragmentation rates. It’s minorly in the deciding of which few among the multitudes are going to be flung up into space in tin cans in an attempt to weather the apocalypse, but more in the ability of a scrappy, over-smart maker society to mobilize the entire earth in an effort to fling those tin cans skyward.” — NPR

What the Puppies have said about it: “I started reading Neal Stephenson’s latest novel, Seveneves, and it is truly depressing. Less because nearly everyone on Earth dies than because he appears to have gone full SJW [Social Justice Warrior] with a Gamma [male] sauce. It’s the first time I’ve found it necessary to force myself to keep reading one of his books, and the first time one of his books has struck me as being proper Pink SF. Female presidents, token ethnic melanges, you name it, he’s got it to such an extent that were it not for Stephenson’s past gamma [male] markers, I would almost suspect an epic, master-class trolling of the current genre.” — Theodore “Vox Day” Beale

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And a final note: As always, with articles on this topic, please refrain from name-calling or personal insults, directed at either side of this debate. Violators will be dismissed and probably blocked.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that John Scalzi was SFWA president when Theodore Beale was expelled. He had actually stepped down from that position two months earlier. Also, I added a mention that anyone who buys a Worldcon supporting membership can nominate.

Top image: art by Jim Cooke

Fun Things to Do On an Online Date

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Fun Things to Do On an Online Date

  • Arrive 20 minutes early
  • Ask, “Who is David Foster Wallace?”
  • Bring with you a mattress
  • Ask, “If you could visit any concentration camp, which one would it be?”
  • Tell him/her all the things you hate about New York a/o the place you live and why it is the worst place on earth
  • Ask, “In human history, what was the worst genocide, in your opinion?”
  • Extol the virtues of capitalism
  • Ask, “Was the invasion of Poland inevitable?”
  • Talk about TV

Photo via Flickr

The Saddest Story You Will Ever Read About Keith Urban

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The Saddest Story You Will Ever Read About Keith Urban

Keith Urban is Nicole Kidman’s husband. He is also a relatively famous country singer, though as the below story indicates, he’s a frickin’ superstar inside his own head.

The following tale comes from a tipster. If you enjoy people vastly overestimating the size of their own celebrity, you will enjoy it.

I work in Portsmouth, NH, and Keith Urban visited the strip mall I work in to get a tattoo at another shop, called Oceanic Tatau, owned by Trevor Marshall, who is kind of a big deal in the tattoo world, I gather. Anyway, the shop was closed to anyone else while Urban was there, and a bodyguard stood in front of the door to deal with lookyloos. Here’s the thing—nobody was bothering him. Nobody knew he was there, and the few that did (like me) could not care less. There’s actually a restaurant with patio seating directly opposite the ink shop, and all the diners seemed entirely unaware Urban was in the vicinity. At one point, Urban’s personal assistant (a guy in his fifties) was running around the plaza in a frenzy. He nearly bowled me over trying to access my shop, and quickly retreated. He then went to his car, parked in front of my window, and started tearing the backseat apart, eventually finding a backpack that seemed to ease his mood. He went running back to the ink shop. A few minutes later, Urban was ushered out by the bodyguard and assistant in a hurried and protected fashion, as though shielding him from the papparazzi. There was nobody in their way. It looked ridiculous. And the bodyguard opened Urban’s car door for him. It was a shitty Buick with Pennsylvania plates. No big deal. But it looked stupid, and I don’t give a fuck about Keith Urban—but what the fuck was in that backpack that caused the assistant to run around from shop to shop before realizing the backpack was exactly where he left it? A koala bear? What the fuck? BTW—Nicole Kidman was not there. Which is probably the bigger story. BUT WHAT WAS IN THAT FUCKING BACKPACK?


Contact the author at jordan@gawker.com.

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